There's a role in Australian universities and TAFEs that carries enormous responsibility, touches hundreds of students every semester, and is almost always under-resourced. That's the WIL coordinator — the person who makes internships actually happen. They negotiate with employers, brief students, chase compliance documentation, manage scheduling conflicts, track insurance requirements, handle the placements that go wrong, and somehow find time to support the ones that are go

Ask an employer what they want from an intern and you'll hear something like this: someone who can hit the ground running, communicate clearly, take initiative, and ask good questions. Ask a university coordinator what skills their internship program develops and you'll often hear something quite different: discipline-specific knowledge, technical competency, professional awareness. Both answers are reasonable. But they're not the same answer. And that gap — between what inst